Parent Bulletin
December 31, 2020
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I trust you had a joyful Christmas, celebrating our Savior’s birth! While most of you are focusing now on Christmas day clean-up and New Year’s day preparations, I’m looking ahead to the coming weeks in January. That’s because January always brings about a lot of happenings at St. Louise School.
January is when we have always kicked-off our Annual School Gift Campaign. This required fund raiser will be different this new year in that we have given it a new name! From now on, the mouthful will be shortened to simply, the Annual Fund. We rely on the generosity of you school parents, along with school grandparents, St. Louise Parish parishioners, and even our school staff to kindly give to the Annual Fund, which is a needed revenue source for our annual operating budget. We have budgeted to receive $190,000 in donations to our 2021 Annual Fund, allowing us to use these tax-deductible contributions in lieu of raising tuition. Thank you in advance for your giving, and expect to receive more information on the Annual Fund in the coming weeks.
Something else that makes January a busy month is our yearly observance of national Catholic Schools’ Week. This year, Catholic Schools’ Week runs from January 30 through February 5. This is time to celebrate our school’s success along with the national success story of Catholic education throughout America. Because of COVID-precautions and limited attendance at weekend Masses, this year’s Catholic Schools’ Week celebrations won’t be the same as at past years’ parish Masses. But stay tuned for some fun plans for celebrating CSW, nonetheless.
January is also when we really turn up the energy and excitement about admissions for the forthcoming school year. This coming month is when we start having new prospective school parents visit and start applying for their children to join St. Louise School in the 2021-22 school year. We will need to have less visitors in our school touring, during this COVID-precautions period, but we still will be able to show off our beautiful building and impressive school community to prospective school parents in small-group-formats. If you have a neighbor, co-worker, or friend who is searching for a school that not only teaches in-person when so many other school buildings are closed, but that also can teach to the whole child – including the eternally-important faith-formation component of a child’s development – please steer them our way.
Enjoy the celebration of the New Year! We look forward to starting the unofficial second half of the school year next week (albeit with everyone learning from home for one week)! Thank you in advance for making sure when in-person school resumes in 10 days – on January 11 – that your family is symptom-free of any flu or virus. We appreciate your due diligence as you exercise caution during these winter months when illnesses can more easily spread!
Blessings on your day!
MR. FITZ
p.s.
We love it when our current school families can send a new school family our way! Remember, we have a referral program that gives a current family a free month’s tuition if they refer a new family to us and that family ends up enrolling! Thanks for sharing the St. Louise story with those you know who have upcoming 4-to-14 year-olds.
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CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS
Friday, January 1
- Solemnity of Mary, The Holy Mother of God
Monday, January 4 through Friday, January 8
- School resumes with online classes all this week on Microsoft Teams; note that grades 7-8 do not have any classes on Monday, due to that day being a high school application workday for teachers
Monday, January 11
- School resumes for ALL for IN-PERSON schooling (except for families who are remaining doing remote learning at all times)
Thursday, January 14
- School Commission meeting in the school library, 6:30PM
Monday, January 18
- No-School Day: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday; school office and Kids' Club both closed
CHECK OUT OUR COMPLETE SCHOOL CALENDAR HERE
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Reminder about January's First Week |
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Please note our special calendar adjustment for next week. The first week back from Christmas vacation – Monday, January 4, through Friday, January 8 – will be 100% online-learning for all. This will help alleviate the concern from both parents and teachers of the student body gathering so soon after New Year’s celebrations and travel.
Giving us this “buffer” week of staying home to learn remotely will assure parents that their children won’t be returning to their classrooms right when they might be on the verge of symptoms for the flu or COVID emerging from the holiday events.
Grades K-8 will use Microsoft Teams daily next week and will follow their usual school day hours, with the students logging in by 8:30 each morning.
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Grade K-5 teachers will provide some screen breaks during the day so the students will not be online for a full 8:30-3:00 timeframe daily. Teachers have provided their students and parents with each day’s daily schedule.
- Grade 6-8 teachers will follow the same schedule they are currently following for remote learning on Teams.
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Note that grades 7 & 8 are NOT in session at all this Monday, January 4. This no-school day for junior high only has been on the calendar. It allows the junior high teachers the day to work on the 8th graders’ high school admissions paperwork.
Please note that to if your grade K-5 child has not used your Teams Accounts since the last time the entire school was online in late September, it's possible Teams will force you to change your password. We recommend you have your child log into Teams NOW to verify all is working properly, and that the Jan. 4-8 classes/meetings appear in your Teams calendar.
It is important that January 4-8 not be treated as a bonus vacation week!
We want students to be actively engaged all day in lessons and/or homework, just as they were the first part of this school year when they were online daily. Therefore, being on a trip somewhere next week will not allow for proper remote learning. Learning via Microsoft Teams needs to be undertaken at home in an environment free of distractions and with all the necessary books and supplies. Furthermore, it defeats the purpose of creating this buffer week immediately after the New Year’s holiday if a family is going to use it to travel.
We very much appreciate your ability to adapt for these coming five days in support of our teachers and the overall health of the community!
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Congratulations to our Junior High Honor Roll Students |
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The following 7th and 8th graders earned placement on the Honor Roll for receiving 90% or higher grades in all their 1st trimester classes, and 3s or higher in all their specialist classes and behavior/effort marks. We congratulate their hard work!
Charlotte Aitken, Kate Banic, Bella Barros, Becca Blank, Briony Brown, Ellison Brown, Simone Cimprich, Jane Clinton, Aliana Cruz, Melissa D’Costa, Anna DeBord, Eliana Estrada, Angeline Fernandez, Lucy Flaat, Malia Gregorios, Alaina Harris, Brayden Jensen, Ramona Kaukl, Ocean Kincaid, Sammy Kujath, Kayla McCulloch, Ellie McHugh, Sean McMenamin, Kylie Mineiro, Jensen Muller, Pia Munar, Ellie Nightingale, Brooke Nowak, Elina Phan, Gaea Ponte, Debu Ratnam, Isabella Sabol, Camila Soto, Fin Sweeney, Sarah Tano, Emmanuel Vimal, Annie Wilken, Noah Wong.
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Fourth Graders Thank and Impress the Troops |
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Earlier this fall, Mrs. Scruggs' 4th grade students wrote letters to U.S. Army troops in Kuwait who are part of the 228th Combat Support Hospital. The letters were thanking the Army nurses and doctors (pictured above) for their service to our country, and also our students asked about what it is like to be deployed overseas in the military. Mr. Fitzpatrick's son, Peter Fitzpatrick, is a nurse-anesthetist and Captain in this hospital, and he and the other nurses and doctors were so happy to receive the 4th graders' letters. They wrote back to St. Louise, and their reply is below.
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Here is the list of themes of photos we'd love to receive from you. Don't let this structure prevent you from uploading any pictures about anything at any time. These themes are a guide of what we plan to include in the 2020-21 St. Louise School Yearbook.
- December – Colorful Christmas Children
- January – Winter or Wet Wonderland?
- February - Very Very Valentine
- March - Practically Prefect (Saint) Patrick
- April – Spinning Skyball in the Spring
- May - Fantastic Flipping Flowers
- All year – Other Remote Learning
Here is how to upload photos:
1. If you don't already have a TreeRing account, click HERE to create one.
2. Load them into the Shared Photos section of Treering. Select Shared Photo Folders. All folders are there for the year. We encourage everyone to load throughout the year.
3. You must have a Treering account in order to contribute photos.
To Purchase & Customize Your School Yearbook
2) Enter St Louise passcode: 101439484318388
The yearbook will be published and distributed in June, 2021. If you have questions, please contact our School Yearbook Co-Editors, Janey Rabon and Penny Williams.
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You Can Buy Charger Online or with Your Phone
Learn how to use Charger Cards from your phone and increase your support for St. Louise! Our online website has an app and mobile website! The app makes it easy to purchase, use and track online Charger Cards!
You can choose to either register for Presto Pay or pay by credit card. PrestoPay is our online vendor’s version of PayPal. Registering for PrestoPay allows you to pay online so you can get “instant” printable/phone usable e-gift cards.
If you add the Raise Right App, this is an optional way to manage your gift cards. This enables you to purchase from your phone while shopping and pay from your phone. The mobile site also tracks/stores your scrip so you know what you have available to use!
information on the various ways you can purchase Charger Cards - in-person or online - go to the Charger Cards webpage.
For more information on brands/cards available for purchase 24/7 please go to shopwithscrip.com.
Thank you for supporting St. Louise Charger Cards!
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Hot Lunch Making Adjustments |
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Our school lunch program - Lunch Ladies - offers an option for grade PK-5 students to order a school lunch on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays each school day throughout this school year.
Due to their hybrid schedule and early lunch time during these COVID-precaution times, Lunch Ladies is sorry to not be able to provide school lunches for grade 6-8 students this school year.
Lunch Ladies has individual, prepacked lunches both in hot and cold to reduce any unnecessary handling of food. Lunch Ladies' commercial-kitchen is meeting all of the new health department guidelines which includes masks, distancing, reduced number of staff in areas, and temperature checks on employees.
Click HERE for the information that grade PK-5 families will need to register for the on-line ordering system. Should you have any questions, please contact Wendy at Lunch Ladies: 425-444-9573; w-szabo@hotmail.com.
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Thursday's Theology:
Christmastime Runs thru January 10; Ordinary Time Begins January 11
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